Let’s take a moment, imagine you are back at home, back in high school. It is mid-February, prime cold season. You have had a stuffy nose and a cough for a couple of days now, and your alarm goes off, you’re not feeling it. The stuffy has now consumed you, and you can’t laugh without a fit of coughs. Obviously you could push through and go to school but the minute you come downstairs and see your mom, you give her the look. She knows exactly what that look means and immediately unpacks your lunch and tells you to go back to bed. Your mom calls school to say you will not be there today, then comes to check on you. While tucked in bed, you half-heartedly protest staying home, but the call has been made, so obviously you’re not going to call back and change your mind.
Your mom gets ready to leave for work, but sets out everything you could need for the day: orange juice, for the vitamin C, cough drops, the DayQuil, and finally her homemade chicken noodle soup, with a side of saltines. At this point you’re too old for your mom to stay home with you on a routine sick day, but you know that a day of rest and mom’s specialties are just what you need. You wait for the hourly check in, a loving call from mom making sure all is well, that the soup was good, and you are taking the medicine at the right time. All the while you are snuggled up on your favorite couch watching all of the reality TV shows that have re-run marathons during the school day.
This is nowhere near what a sick day in college results in. One missed class in college for a sub-life threatening illness results in a grade deduction, and enough confusion with the material to throw off the entire week. The excitement and pampering of an indulging sick day just does not have the same pizazz in college as it does in high school. There is no way to hide from all of the commitments and obligations of each and every day. Sick day, something that has a very different ring in high school than it does in college.